不凡杜鹃 bu fan du juan

Shrubs, 1.5–6 m tall; branchlets thick, straight, 7–8 mm in diam.; young shoots thinly tomentose, glabrescent. Petiole 15–25 mm; leaf blade leathery, obovate-elliptic, obovate-lanceolate, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, 8–13 × 2.5–4.5 cm; base cuneate; apex acuminate or cuspidate; abaxial surface indumentum white or silvery-white, sometimes fawn, sometimes later developing a coppery sheen; adaxial surface glabrous, midrib prominent abaxially, deeply grooved adaxially; lateral veins usually 18–21-paired. Inflorescence lax, 8–15-flowered; rachis 10–15 mm, glabrous. Pedicel stout, 2–5 cm, sparsely tomentose; calyx lobes 5, ca. 1.5 mm, triangular, abaxially floccose; corolla broadly campanulate, pale or deeper pink, with crimson median lines on petals and spotted at base inside, 3–3.5 cm; outer surface glandular-hairy, lobes 5, rounded, emarginate; stamens 13–15, unequal, 1.5–2 cm, filaments densely floccose at base or glabrous; ovary cylindric, ca. 7 mm, 8–10-locular, white woolly-pilose; style stout, glabrous. Capsule cylindric, stout, ca. 25 × 10 mm, densely brownish woolly-pilose. Fl. May, fr. Oct.

Woodlands, thickets, stream banks; 700–2000 m. S Sichuan.

Lower Taxa

• Rhododendron insigne var. hejiangense (W. P. Fang) M. Y. Fang
• Rhododendron insigne var. insigne